Abstract Background Maternal nutrition during gestation affects fetal development, which has long-term programming effects on offspring postnatal growth performance. With a critical role in protein and lipid metabolism, essential fatty acids can influence the development of muscle adipose tissue. The experiment investigated late supplements (77 d prepartum), either rich saturated monounsaturate...

The genetic parameters for growth, reproductive and maternal traits in a multibreed meat sheep population were estimated by applying the Average Information Restricted Maximum Likelihood method to an animal model. Data from a flock supported by the Programa de Melhoramento Genético de Caprinos e Ovinos de Corte (GENECOC) were used. The traits studied included birth weight (BW), weaning weight (...

In sheep, susceptibility to scrapie is associated with the prion protein (PrP) gene polymorphism. In this study the association between selected growth traits (daily weight gain from birth to weaning and in farm fattening performance test, as well as body weight at one and two years) and PrP genotypes ARR/ARR, ARR/XXX and XXX/XXX (XXX representing AHQ, ARQ, ARH or VRQ) has been investigated in ...

Fourteen trials were conducted to evaluate the effects of feeding monensin at 33 ppm alone, tylosin at 11 ppm alone and the two feed additives in combination on the average daily gain, average daily feed intake, feed:gain ratio and the incidence of liver abscesses in feedlot cattle. Monensin reduced feed intake and improved feed efficiency (P less than .05), and had no effect on average daily g...

The contamination of feed with the Fusarium toxin deoxynivalenol (DON) decreases feed intake and daily gain of pigs but also affects their immune response (Étienne and Waché, 2008). Consequently, they could be predisposed to infectious disease. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of a brief contamination of post-weaning feed with DON on performance and health condition during po...

Weaning has been described as one of the most stressful events in the life of horses. Given the importance of the interaction between the gut-brain axis and gut microbiota under stress, we evaluated (i) the effect of two different weaning methods on the composition of gut microbiota across time and (ii) how the shifts of gut microbiota composition after weaning affect the host. A total of 34 fo...

This study was conducted to compare the effects of feeding high protein and low energy milk replacer (HPR; CP 25%, ME 3.6 Mcal/kg DM) with low protein and high energy milk replacer (HPR; CP 21%, ME 4.2 Mcal/kg DM) on feed consumption, body weight (BW) gain, health and selected blood metabolites in Holstein calves during the pre-weaning period. At each feeding, each milk replacer (MR) was prepar...

Milk yield and pre-weaning calf performance of spring-calving Charolais (C) and Beef × Holstein-Friesian (BF) cows was compared over 3 experiments. Cows were individually offered a restricted allowance of grass silage pre partum in Experiments 1 and 2 and ad libitum silage in Experiment 3. In all three experiments cows received silage to appetite for the first 34 (s.d. 16.2) days of lactation. ...

The addition of Daka Porcine Plasma or 2,500 ppm zinc prescribed by the vet significantly increased the pigs’ production value. The highest production value (+9%) was obtained by adding both Daka Porcine Plasma and 2,500 ppm zinc to diet 1 (the diet given the first 14 days post-weaning). A significant positive effect was obtained on daily gain and feed intake before intermediate weighing (10 da...